Family and Nation

Author(s): Mahapragna Acharya, A P J Abdulkalam
Publisher: Harper Publications India

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THE EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS AND PAIN
aspect, at least in a very simple and commonplace sense. We can say that these are two sides of the same reality.
Natural teleology says that all changes in Nature are made for a purpose. But the only purpose we know anything about is the human purpose. To this end, we often ascribe a human aspect to purely natural events. For instance, the assumption that the plant breathes in carbon dioxide so that we may have oxygen to breathe. When we say that the course of natural history is towards maximum goodness, we are expressing the idea of moral progress as a natural law. The Universe itself may not have any goals, but people certainly do, and this is reflected in many descriptive concepts.
If we extend such ideas, we find that we are investing the whole of Nature with more and more human characters. For instance, the ancient Greeks and Romans saw omens of the future in the flight of birds, in the shape and markings of the entrails of sacrificed animals, in the eclipse of the sun or the moon, or in the appearance of a comet. Behind all this lay the vague notion that man's place in Nature was different from that of any other animal. The cosmos existed for his sake and hence anything out of the ordinary must have some special message for him. Some of this has survived in our popular superstitions, such as notions of lucky and unlucky days or numbers, or that a black cat crossing one's path brings bad luck. Modern science has abandoned all such ideas and has seen the Universe as a mechanism completely independent of humankind except insofar as mankind modifies it.
JIVA AND AJIVA
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In the tsunami-affected Nagapattinam and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the devastation that took place was heartrending. What kind of a message was Mother Earth giving? Why is it that so much destruction, pain, suffering and death